Ordinary Life 1

I start out of a sleepy drowse in the warmth of the day, to the sound of Scootaloo approaching. I have to wince as she gets closer, her wings flapping so quickly that she sounds like a miniature lawnmower. As I feel my ears fold back, I have to wonder why my best friend has to be the noisiest thing in all of Ponyville. Not that I’d ever not be friends with her but I mean... never mind.

It really does help the noise level to fold my ears back, incidentally. I sort of always really envied cats about this while I was human, and I guess I was right to do so. Scootaloo roars up without shattering my carefully shielded eardrums. She careens right at me, making my eyes widen in alarm for just a moment, before she ceases barrelling towards me coming to a halt just a few feet... hooflengths away.

“Hey Sweetie,” Scootaloo says casually, a little wavering to her voice. She’s either ignoring, or maybe expecting my appearance of frozen alarm at her approach, “Where’s Apple Bloom?”

I blink, and then say, “Oh! She said she was going to... go run somewhere?” I can’t help but blush then. I totally forgot to ask where Apple Bloom was going. “Um...” I vacillate hesitantly, “She said to tell you to come get her when your wagon is... oh.”

It’s then, I notice that Scootaloo has returned without a wagon in tow: only herself, her helmet, and her scooter. Scoots has a disgusted expression twisting on her face, as she says, “Ms. Wheely said it would take all day to repair, but I think she just wanted to teach me a lesson because she said I can’t have it if I keep doing dangerous things that keep breaking it.”

“Sounds like you need to git gud,” I remark with a straight face. She kind of stares at me uncomprehendingly. I try not to chucklegiggle at that, and just say, “I think she’s right. You will have more fun if you go slower.”

“What, are you kidding?” Scootaloo rolls her eyes at me, turning away to lean her scooter up against the trunk of the tree we’re under. “Slower is like, the opposite of fun.”

“Well,” I counter blithlely, “You’re not having fun now, are you?”

“Only because she wouldn’t fix my wagon!” Scootaloo exclaimed fussily.

I shake my head at Scootaloo. “If your wagon wasn’t broken,” I say, “Then she couldn’t tell you what to do.”

I try to explain as simply and clearly as I can to someone who’s a little pony girl with the attention span of a breezie. “So, going slower feels like less fun now,” I explain, “But it feels like more fun later, when you can show everypony how good you are at it. Like Ms. Wheely. If you start slow, and then go fast after you’ve practiced going slow, it’ll be way more fun, I bet.”

“I guess so...” Scootaloo says uncertainly, leading me to ...shrug inwardly. Close enough for Congress. It’s one of those hard to learn lessons, that the real daredevils are the most careful at what they do. I’d honestly hate if she got discouraged from her passion, just because she couldn’t hold back long enough to git gud, but with me around maybe that won’t... well, maybe even if I’m not going to be around anymore, at least she has a fighting chance now.

“So you don’t know where Apple Bloom is,” Scootaloo says grumpily. The orange filly standing before my seated form looks at me testily, her swoop of bizarrely maroonish hair not getting in her eyes at all like mine does. Her wings are folded tightly to either side of her, and her ears are level but slightly tilted in irritation. Her vividly violet, captivating eyes are...

I shake my head, dropping her gaze. “I forgot to ask Apple Bloom, sorry,” I mumble. “I just wanted her to have fun, instead of having to take care of me all day...”

“You really need to get walking again,” Scootaloo observes, tossing her tail the moment the sentence leaves her mouth, just as if she recognized it was something that didn’t need to be said. “Have you been practicing?” she asks leaning toward me hopefully. “Did you try it?” she asks, “I mean, walking?”

“I–no I...” crap now I’m a big hypocrite. My own ears go down and my tail snugs a bit closer to my side as I speak. “I should have tried,” I mutter, self critically. “I was just scared of falling over, with nobo–nopony there to catch me.”

“Well, your worries are over!” Scootaloo says cheerily, puffing out her chest and wings, and striking a pose that I imagine was supposed to look impressive. I also can’t stop imagining a budgie doing it, though. “I’ll totally spot you if you want to practice walking around,” Scootaloo claims confidently, while I try not to laugh at jumbling her together with the memory of a proud puffy budgie bird.

Giving a shifty look at the obviously smaller, lighter pegasi, I don’t exactly shake my head, but I do say a bit critically, “Are you sure you can catch me? I was going to wait until Ace I mean, Dr. Ace could catch me...”

After a dreamy pause, Scootaloo drawls, “Nah, it’s fine,” pulling me out of my impromptu fantasy of Dr. Ace catching me in his arms. “I’m pretty tough, plus the whole—you know—earth pony thing.”

Afraid not, Scootaloo. I’m a human who just saw you in the show. I’m about to open my mouth to question her about ‘the whole earth pony thing’ more fully, when Scootaloo blithly utters those little words that every smart young filly dreads: “Come on. What could possibly go wrong?”

~~~ 5 minutes later ~~~

“I knew this was a bad idea!” I shout, trying to unhook my elbow from her ...knee? other elbow? Ugh! How do pony joints even work? The only reason I’m not totally freaking out is that, by sheer luck, our pony vaginas don’t appear to be touching.

If my explanation of what could possibly go wrong wasn’t convincing enough, the tangled pile of wings and limbs that we collectively form, as I fall over on her yet again really drives the point home. Scootaloo has to unkink herself from me, but finally with only a little bit of pushing painfully on my cheek, we separate into two ponies once again.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell her resentfully hunched frame, once I’ve managed to compose myself, with my limbs neatly folded underneath my torso. “Dr. Ace will just show me how to walk tomorrow, and everything will work great.”

“I guess so, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says. She says that phrase a lot, actually. I hope she’s not just patronizing me. It sounds kind of patronizey. But no, she’s my friend I have to trust she’s looking out for me. Scootaloo smiles, and holds out a hoof at me. Not sure what she wants, I take the hoof and feel Scootaloo do the hoof hold thing, as she pulls me up to a standing position, then releases me.

“So, you want to go look for Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asks, with a jaunty half kick. Before I can answer, her face freezes in the sudden hesitation of a disappointed realization though. Turning the back of her head to me, and looking up at the sky, Scootaloo adds, “It’s... getting kinda late actually. I bet Apple Bloom is doing her chores now.”

I look up too, lifting a hoof to push back my bouncy pink and purple curls, and to my surprise the sun is quite low in the sky. I hadn’t even noticed how the time was just flying by. Isn’t time supposed to go slowly when you’re just sitting there enjoying the day, and going stir crazy from not being able to walk around?

“You want a ride back to your hou–oh right, back to... the Boutique?” Scootaloo asks, gesturing grandly at her scooter.

“What are my par–um...” I have to abort my question to look at the scooter again with great puzzlement. “But you didn’t get the wagon back,” I point out, critically.

“You don’t remember?” Scootaloo says, pushing the scooter in her front hooves waddling on her back ones to put it parallel to me. “I can take you with just this,” she explains. “Just put your hooves on the handles, like you’re going to ride it.”

Curious, I do so, and it’s so nice that I can do so. My days of hands may be long gone, but these hooves aren’t so bad after all. I almost could ride this scooter even, maybe if I was ever willing to let my lower hooves, braced beneath my flexibly rearing body, ever, ever leave the ground. Yeah, I’m not confident enough to actually step up onto this scooter. Scootaloo assists me with that endeavor, in a way that’s both comfortable and uncomfortable.

“Wha҉t are you–!” I squeak out as she flutters up right against me. I can feel her chest and belly press against the curve of my back and rear, as her hooves hook themselves under my arms around my chest. Her head comes up alongside mine, over my right shoulder right beside my ear, before I can so much as gulp nervously. My shoulders are out because I’m holding onto this scooter here, and she’s conforming to my body holyjeesusmackerel.

The thing is, it feels really good. It’s like that hug that I managed to give her earlier, and not at all like the tangle we were in a few minutes ago. Like that hug, it feels good but it feels really maybe a little bit whole lot less than appropriate. I say nothing but blush, shouldering her weight because I don’t want to fall over, or be a bad friend. But she’s... she’s—!

“You’re going to r-ride me, while I take us there?” I ask in a teenier, less confident voice than I’d like to.

“Close,” Scootaloo says at my ear, bracing against me in an “oh I hope I can’t feel her little undeveloped filly parts” sort of way. “You’re gonna steer,” she asserts, “While I provide propulsion!”

Her hoof leaves my shoulder, and I feel that smooth green helmet come slapping down over my head again. Ohhh boy. Scootaloo pushes the chin strap against my chin with a hoof, then uses her lips and teeth to fasten it and pull it tight, all the while spooning me atop her own scooter. I have to lift one hind hoof to squeeze my thighs together, trying to quell the restless feelings in my own strange femininity. I don’t think Scootaloo even realizes how intimate this is. That’s... that’s incredibly hot, that she doesn’t even know. I think maybe I’m just going to enjoy this and not tell her, for now.

It’s then that Scootaloo engages her wings, and the scooter rolls underneath me, pulling my last hoof out from under me. Amazingly, I don’t fall. Between my death grip on the handlebars, and Scootaloo’s strong body pressed up against me as the force from her wings compress the two of us together, I remain affixed to this scooter. One of my hind hooves clops down on the board of the scooter, while the other one skips along, trying to keep up with her steady acceleration, until I can brace both hooves on the board like she is.

“Remember! Slowly first!” I shout behind me in a totally not panicked squeal.

Of course I don’t know the way to go, but I can follow the sun at least, so Scootaloo tells me where to turn. And to her credit, Scootaloo is being much more careful this time. It’s probably just because the accident is fresh in her mind, but I try to tell myself in a little voice in my head, that she’s learned her lesson. We only have a... couple spills, and honestly they’re mostly my fault, when I turned the handlebars too hard, or slipped off the board when I forgot about holding onto it. Scootaloo really makes riding this thing look easy!

As we approach the boutique, an unprovoked sense of disappointment wells up inside me. I don’t know what it is at first, but when I think about it, my whole time here has been like an afterthought. “I guess the day is over,” is how I feel. But not just the day. Like... I feel like, I mean... I literally did come in at the end of the adventure. I feel like I came in at the end of the adventure, and everypony has just been wrapping everything up ever since. I’m glad to be here, and I can’t disparage one moment of my experience as Sweetie Belle, but... but...

I didn’t even get to see the clubhouse...

My disappointment goes on hold, when Scootaloo slides lithely off my body, to trot over and pull open the door, ringing the bell above it in such a familiar way. My disappointment gets pitched out into deep space, only returning centuries later as an alien enhanced god machine seeking its ancient creators, when after Scootaloo vanishes inside, Rarity pops her head out with a surprised “Sweetie Belle!” Then inside her boutique, I can hear someone else shouting “Sweetie Belle?!” and ...it’s a stallion.

A-and Rarity is looking kind of flushed there. And I can hear his hooves clipping along the floor rushing at the front door like a speeding train. I have the barest moment to form my mouth into an apology, before he– he–!

He barrels through the door hip checking Rarity aside like a bumper car, completely ignoring her and coming up right into my face, his huge eyes full of agitation. “Is it true?!” he demands in a bright baritone, “You didn’t forget all of your lessons?!” Even as he comes at me, I shrink back, crouching down as small as I can be. I can’t even summon up a squeak it’s so absolutely terrifyingly confusing. This isn’t Ace!

The unicorn confronting me is one I haven’t seen before, with cornflower blue fur and a horn of the like color emerging from his tousled greyish blue hair. I–isn’t she supposed to, didn’t we walk in on Rarity—why isn’t this Ace? This isn’t– is Rarity cheating on him? Rarity’s not with Ace though, so is it even cheating? They just met! Are they both in there with her? Is Rarity having a multi-stallion orgy in her boutique while I’m off and away?! Who is this?! What do I say?

Rarity shoves him roughly with her shoulder, knocking him away from me so I can remember to breathe again. “Lay off, Bright!” she exclaims at him in a less than ladylike manner. “Did I not tell you she’s been having anxiety? You’re giving the poor dear a heart attack!”

“But she can’t have forgotten everything!” he retorts, thankfully at Rarity not at me. My little unicorn heart is settling down to a mere racing pace, and I have a moment to remember how to perceive objects in front of me again, instead of just one confusing mishmash of nothing makes sense. He has to–I’m jumping to conclusions. That’s it. I look at him in a new light, starting to work out why there’s a stallion in Rarity’s boutique. She’s already broke the bed with Dr. Ace, and now this is a... a customer, that’s it! Why is he interested in me though?

Scootaloo pokes her head around from inside the boutique, looking over at the little unicorn surrounded by concerned adults that I am, with a big silent apologetic grin.

“What is going on,” I moan to anyone who will listen, face planting on the handlebars of Scootaloo’s scooter, on the hooves hooked on those handlebars, beneath the green retard helmet still wrapped around my head.

Rarity insists that we all calm down and get inside, and I certainly don’t resist being dragged along into the masculinity annihilating sea of purple and pink that her boutique is. Soon I’m sitting there on that little stool in front of the kitchen table, staring down morosely at a cup full of... tea I think Rarity said. Rarity stands on the kitchen floor, along with the stallion whom she continues to argue with, who Rarity keeps addressing in bits and pieces as Bright Bulb. It makes sense, considering the, well, bright bulb emblazoned on his hindquarters. Scootaloo has gone, having fled the tense situation the moment she had the opportunity, for which I don’t blame her one bit.

I inhale, then exhale.

“Excuse me!” I interject noisily. It takes the two adults a while to wind down, but I know they heard that, so I keep my eyes steady on the two giant ponies. When I can be heard again, I talk to the stallion, saying, “Who are you? What do you want with me? What did I forget?”

His eyes light up in outrage and he looks like he’s going to shout at me again, but then they dim defeatedly, and he sinks down into a heavy hunch on his hooves.

“You’re not joking, are you,” he says to me, not asks.

“I–I’m not joking, no,” I say uncertainly, “I have amnesia, so I don’t remember a lot of things.”

“Rune algebra?” he asks hopefully. I shake my head.

“The three laws?” he pleads.

“Laws of what?” I have to respond, feeling upset that I can’t help him. He seems like such a nice stallion; I wish I wasn’t... like this. His reaction is honestly distraught, and what I thought was an attack just seems like him being overeager now. Bright walks in quick efficient movements, his words excitable and his skinny frame suggesting at a high metabolism. He isn’t much to look at, but he does seem genuinely concerned with my well being.

“April Showers and the Star Sea?” he asks, a seeking but hopeless smile on his face.

“Y-you’ll have to tell me that one again,” I mumble, looking down at my tea on the table, practically dipping my nose in it. I don’t literally dip my nose, because it actually is quite a bit hot and still needs to cool down.

“It’s just...” he says over me while I look away. “It’s just...” he repeats, “...wow.” I try looking at him again, and he’s actually got a little smile on his face. A little sad smile. “I can work with this,” he says in a tone that suggests not even he is convinced. “Your sister said you had a cascade earlier? We can... it’s only been a year, it’s not too much to catch up on.”

I think I can feel my pupils shrinking just a bit as I start to realize. “You mean,” I reach up and tap at my horn. Silent magic tickles my horn when I do that, and also my mane tickles my pastern. “You’re my... um...” I trail off. What would you even call that?

“Magic teacher?” I venture, putting my hoof down flat to the floor.

Bright Bulb laughs at that, quite heartily, before backing up a bit and smiling awkwardly at my puffy cheeked frown. “Sorry Sweetie Belle,” he says, “I didn’t mean any offense. I’m just a tutor really, nothing official like a professor.”

“You sure seem to be upset for something not official,” I point out grumblingly.

“Well it’s just...” he pauses, rubbing a hoof on his nose. “It’s just a bit unexpected, that’s all! I have been tutoring you in magic for almost a year, and it won’t change anything I mean, but it just might take some... catching up.”

“I’m sorry,” I honestly tell him: sorry in more ways than one. “I’ll um, probably remember who– I mean, I’ll probably remember my lessons when my... memory comes back.”

I should tell Rarity. I’m not Sweetie Belle. That’s the easy explanation for all this. I can’t tell her though, with him around! Oooh, maybe he’s going to give me magic lessons! That would be so cool! “M-maybe we could do something simple?” I ask failing to conceal the excited hiccup in my voice.

He looks at me, and then gives a smile tinged with just a little bit of approval. “I think we can manage that, tonight,” Mr. Bright says.

He takes me into Rarity’s showroom as there’s more room there, and it’s after hours for her boutique apparantly. Separate from the mirrors and walls and curtains, at that broad table on which I was um, coloring earlier. He stands before me, while I stand quite noticeably much shorter than him, having to look up his furry blue chest to his furry blue face, from where my stumpy little legs hold me down here.

“Alright. Why don’t you try to ground and center? Do you remember that?” he asks, a bit patronizingly. I hesitate though, because I mean...

“Are you sure...?” I ask, fidgeting on my hooves there beside the table. “I tried before and it um... splinched?”

Mr. Bright nods, saying in a calmer voice, “That’s why I’m here, in fact. It’s my job to handle any magical mishaps you may find yourself getting into. Do you remember that much, at least?”

I start to nod, then shake my head slightly, “No, but you just told me, so I do now.”

“Well if you wanna nit-pick,” Bright whuffs, rolling his eyes at my words.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” I say hurriedly. If he can stop me from messing up, this might actually be fun. I wonder what kind of magic I can do! I... probably shouldn’t get my hopes up. But still!

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes, trying to imagine my head suspended by a string, pulling my shoulders a bit straighter and squarer. It doesn’t quite...feel the same though. Am I doing this right?

“Your horn, Sweetie,” he says, “Not your head.” Oh right. The whole ‘not human anymore’ thing. I shift my attention to the bony protrusion on my forehead and, just paying attention to it makes a sort of sliding whisper seem to come from up in there. It feels like... things inside it, shifting into place. But, wait, can he–?! I lose my concentration, opening my eyes and looking at Mr. Bright in astonishment.

“You can see what I’m doing?!” I blurt surprisedly. At a flicker of confusion on his face, I emphasize, waving my hooves to clarify, “I mean... you can already? I was just getting ready I wasn’t doing anything. Did it look like something? What was I doing? Was my horn lit up?”

“Those are good questions, Sweetie!” he interrupts cheerfully, muttering “for completely starting over,” more grumpily under his breath. I manage to raise an eyebrow before he hastily interjects, “You bet I can see you getting ready. There are all sorts of ways we move around in anticispace, all through the day, even with normal little things. I’d show you, but it does take a bit of practice to be able to pick up on that stuff. It’s just like the old pick-a-card trick, one of the most fundamental magics out there.”

Sitting my butt down at the stool, I lean my head on my hoof against the table a little lazily. I try to keep the snark out of my voice as I honestly ask him, “Shouldn’t I be studying that, then?”

“Maybe if you were an earth pony!” he answers with a teasing whinny. “But no, seriously, I like to get you foals started with something you can use, so that when you do study the fundamentals you know what they’re going to lead to.”

My head tilts up from bracing against my hoof. He’s beaming proudly at his statement, his head tilted proudly to accentuate his... horn, yeah. But he does have a good point, for a giant blue horn pony. “That’s... a surprisingly good way to study,” I manage to say.

His smile falters a bit, and he scratches the back of his head with a hoof in shy embarassment. “Well, it’s what the manual suggests anyway,” he says unflatteringly, “Now, come on, let’s get grounding!”

I nod understandingly, closing my eyes and–no, I open my eyes again and ask him, “Wait, what’s ‘anticispace?’”

He blinks at me a bit, before putting hoof to chest and answering smoothly. “It’s just space, pretty much,” he says, “Shifted just a teeny bit into the future. We tunnel through from there to perform a lot of our magic. If you can get an eye for it, anticispace lets you anticipate another pony’s movements, or what they might be thinking about just that moment.”

“That’s...” I trail off, and my tail flups on the ground in sheer confusion. This is supposed to be magic, so why is what he’s saying making so much sense? Of course there’s a... second... space... but that should be impossible. But it seems so obvious! Is it just my brain working differently? But if that’s true, then why am I me at all?

“Yeah, it’s kind of advanced for a little filly like you,” Mr. Bright admits, hoofing the floor embarassedly. “Start with grounding,” he instructs me, “And don’t worry about the little details, for now.”

I think to answer him, or ask further questions, but he’s right I’m just getting distracted here. Closing my eyes again, I do the string thing, but this time from my horn and not my head. This “string thing” is more centering than grounding. Readying-to-ground? I don’t know what those hippie new age meditation gurus would call it, while they’re busy boinking young boys out behind the dojo, but I’d call it “center and ground” not “ground and center.”

Anyway, I do that, and my horn feels... it’s a lot more sensitive than the last time I did this with Rarity back in that Dodge Terminal forest lodge. It’s not like my horn is moving, or flexing, or whirring mechanically, but, it just feels sort of tingly and lit up, like when you shine a flashlight through a fertilized chicken egg.

And then I lose my concentration again, opening my eyes to try and see if my horn really is lit up. Unfortunately, the horn atop my head doesn’t even have a hint of the characteristic celadon magic I might expect. No gentle aura of it, not even the stray green spark. Not that I can see it on my own head, but well, there are a lot of mirrors in Rarity’s show room, now that I look around for one.

“You’ve almost got it, Sweetie!” Mr. Bright tells me encouragingly, pulling me back to the task at hand. Blushing a little, I firm my lip and close my eyes yet again, determined not to get so easily distracted this time—wait I wonder if—no, no I’ll worry about that after. Ground and center. Ground, and center. Feel the flow of motive gently tugging you upward, aligning your attention with the ground. And if that made any sense, what my horn feels like makes it even harder to describe. But I center myself, and then ground, letting that sense of anticipation sink through me into the earth.

Once again there’s that bizarre sensation of everything around me lighting up, just like my horn did a moment ago. I can sort of get an idea where Mr. Bright is standing, and the mirror I was looking at has a ..something, and there’s that swirl around me, of the same aether that swirled around when Rarity twiddled the knobs on the faucet. Wait, where is Rarity, anyway?

I open my eyes, feeling very relaxed at least, from the pleasant if brief meditation. I half expect myself to be splinched with the seat again, but my cute little unicorn butt is decidedly separate from the stool I’m sitting on. I turn over my shoulder to look down at it, and, woah I forgot how big my tail is. No splinching though. I just feel a measured calm in my heart, a stool pressing on my butt if that wasn’t obvious, and a distinct lack of testicles for that stool to uncomfortably press upon.

The feeling of a slightly kinked base of a tail does seem to make up for that lack. Not nearly the same feeling though.

“Splendid, Sweetie!” Bright announces, giving me an approving whicker and looking at me pleasedly when I turn around to face him.

A flutter of excitement fills me at that, and I say, “Did I do it? Did I do magic?”

Bright laughs, and I blush because that sounded totally stupid. I sound just like a little girl who got her very first taste of achievement. I guess I sort of am a little girl, and that was my very first taste of achievement.

“Not yet, Sweetie,” Mr. Bright accedes comfortingly, “But you are certainly very good at relaxing yourself. That’s a key step to clean and safe spellcasting. Do you remember the three flowers song?”

So what, it was just about relaxing me all along? That’s all grounding and centering is? What’s with the splinching, then? Though I feel a bit slighted, I obediently answer, “No I don’t think so.” And then I realize—oh no, that means he’s going to start singing!

Macy got a Daisy, Buttercup and a Bell Blue She planted each into a shell The flowers broke through the shells as they grew Just like from her horn the magic swelled She wove the shells together again Her horn knew their shape what to put where From the rectangle, she took the square And had her the rectangle again. Macy knew to take the square The flowers must escape she remarked But the shells must be rebuilt with care For shattered all they did was sparked. A seashell creature hides away From the dangers in the sea Where a unicorn reaches out to play And plants her flowers for all to see.

The details of the song escape me, but I think it has to do with how a horn is the same shape as a seashell, and that helps magic, somehow. Maybe I have the wrong idea about paying attention to these songs. Nopony else does, so maybe I’m screwing my chances up by doing so? The song has one obvious effect on me at least.

A lot of my hour with Bright is spent calming me down from the creeping irrational fear that my horn is as hollow and fragile as a seashell, even though I already know better from the show, and direct experience at the hospital. Just imagining it breaking like a shell is just... ugh... calm now, I am calm now. Rarity menawhile reveals her presence, floating into the room a tray of more tea and what look and taste like a few fresh baked cookies. And like hay.

Bright only has about an hour to grill me with what apparently should have been my weekly magic lesson, and then it’s well past dinner time, and I promise him up and down that I will be there for him next week, with no more terrible calamities ruining everything I’ve learned so far.

For something I can “do” this meditation horn string thing sure doesn’t seem to do anything. At least I feel a little... calmer I guess? It’s meditation. It relaxes you. I mean, there’s the feeling out there of that weird swirly aether stuff, and that’s new, but it doesn’t “do” anything that I can see, certainly not splicing me with nearby furniture.

It’s only after he’s left the boutique that I realize, with a bit of a shock that I’m not actually attracted to that stallion. As Rarity and I wave at his retreating rear end, I can’t help but notice his sack hanging there, and... there it is: that uncomfortably pleasant feeling of dread and satisfaction, the simple awareness that right now I have a vagina. I could get penetrated by that man! I can sort of feel it too: that weird little treasure hidden in my rounded bottom, without even looking or touching myself down there. Proprioception at its finest. But even with that thought in my head, Mr. Bright just looks... sort of homely. A bit skinny maybe. But nothing I have to fight to deny being attracted to.

Oh sweet Celestia, I think I might be a superficial bitch.

And thinking about it afterwards, I have to ask Rarity, I mean, I really shouldn’t, but I ask her anyway over our dinner salad. I ask,

“Is Dr. Ace handsome, for a pony?”

“For a pony?” Rarity asks me querulously. Damnit this was a bad idea.

“N-never mi-”I stutter, but Rarity answers confidently over me, gesturing with the fork in her magic, pierced neatly through a bit of hearty kale:

“I would say he is, yes,” she answers, “Perhaps you mean how well toned he is? He is a strong qualifier in the Equestrian cup, and that kind of activity will make him the sort of stallion that all the mares like to fawn over. What–ohh, I see how it is.”

She smiles over at me, somewhere between compassionate and smug. “You thought I was romantically attracted to Dr. Ace,” Rarity concludes with a little eye flutter, “I must have confused you terribly with my mixed messages regarding our lunchtime tryst.”

She lays a hoof on mine and says more gently, “Don’t worry, Sweetie Belle. I have to go at these things at my own pace, after all. I will, rest assured, find myself the most gallant special somepony one of these days. But with Dr. Ace, we merely enjoyed each other’s company, and laughed together over a tasty treat.”

She tosses her mane, remarking a bit self consciously with an off stare, “It is possible for a mare to have stallion friends, you know, without them all being romantic pursuits.”

“You sure were hitting on him, though,” I blurt unthinkingly. My expression freezes and my pupils narrow, and Rarity blinks at me thoughtfully, but... her face opens in a trusting smile without suspicion.

“It doesn’t mean I can’t keep my options open, shall we say,” Rarity says to me with a little coy smirk. And I swear, if I thought I fully understood women before becoming Sweetie Belle, Rarity keeps throwing me curve balls that make me question everything I know. Isn’t she supposed to be a proper lady? But she is! Somehow she’s being bawdy as a sailor without straying from perfect politeneness. And somehow she’s being blatantly sexual, without being sexual at all. I don’t know whether to get upset at her, admire her, or fall in love with her like every other pony does it seems.

It’s like watching Mary Poppins hit on Bert. Yeah, it’s pretty much exactly like that.

Wait, weren’t the local livestock also hitting on Mary Poppins during that song? Damn you Mary Poppins for making me a furry! Well great, now I’ve ruined any chances I had of redemption by blaspheming in Mary Poppins’s name. Forgive me, Mary! Brushing your teeth is probably not the best time to be thinking about all this.

I can brush my own teeeeeeeeth

With my newfound holding ability, it gives me the opportunity to validate the existence of toothbrushes in this universe, by brushing my own teeth. I barely had to have Rarity help me get balanced on the sink at all! And I don’t even know how to use my horn yet! Okay so I am having to curl my hoof around the toothbrush a little bit, but it is possible, and that’s what’s important.

If seeing Sweetie Belle in the (bottom half of the) medicine cabinet’s mirror isn’t captivating enough, then you should see how captivating it is when Sweetie Belle opens her mouth! I mean, really: I have no delusion that cuteness is anything but skin deep, so it’s going to get pretty gross once you get deeper than the skin. But it still hits me pretty hard when I open my mouth to get a look at the chompers I’m supposed to be brushing.

I got pretty careful about tooth brushing later in life. After losing a cat to bad teeth, well let’s just say that it’s not the way I wanted to die of old age. But after a lifetime of piss poor health care and crooked dentists (especially dentists), I had to learn a few things about oral hygiene all on my own. I grew up back in a time when scaling and root planing wasn’t even a thing, so I got to witness every dentist on the planet suddenly adopt it as a regular recommended practice without any studies actually supporting it. It left me profoundly suspicious of anything “everyone knows” is good for your teeth.

Anyway, so I’m careful when I brush my teeth. And that gives me an opportunity to check out just how different my teeth are. I open my mouth, and stretch out my cheek a bit with the toothbrush, using the mirror to getting a good look at the pearly white residents of that glistening pink cavern underneath my nose. They’re not horse teeth thank god. If you have ever seen what horse molars look like, well let’s just say H.P. Lovecraft had to get his ideas from somewhere..

I wasn’t surprised at the pink empty gap between my molars and incisors, thanks to crazy Twilight on the show and also well... thanks to actually feeling it when I’ve been chewing. But unlike horse teeth, those molars in the back look just a little bumpy and smooth. Certainly not labyrinthine monstrosities of yellow and brown. I can only see three molars; actually my incisors are what take up most of what makes my muzzle longer. Do you even call them incisors outside the two center ones? Because the broad flat chisellike incisors have another two on either side slightly smaller, that both look like incisors, but...

Okay, I’ve been staring at my own mouth too long. I brush my teeth handily, er, hoofily, and call out to Rarity, who pokes her head in and smiles.

“Splendid, dear,” she says easily, “Now I think we should engage in our evening soak. Would you like to use the toilet first?”

Smiling at her, “I—”

...

.....

Oh shit.

I don’t want to do this. But she asked me, and now I’m feeling it! I knew this was going to happen. I should have been ready. I should have, have, have... have done something. It’s been what three days, since I was starving? That’s plenty of time! More than enough time! My face falls at the gross realization for which I am not ready. But my body is ready.

“I um... I–I should be okay I just um...”

“Sweetie, are you... alright?” Rarity asks with a bit of a squint.

“Yes I’m solid. Fine! I meant fine! I’m perfectly fine! Is the bath-t-toilet is the um, can I um...”

“Dear, you’ve used the bathroom three times now without incident,” Rarity says to me uneasily. “Surely you can ...manage it on your own now?”

“I have yes but it hasn’t been um...” I fidget beside the sink, shrinking down, wishing that they didn’t separate the bathroom from the toilet room so I could just ... uggh it’s starting to push, now! “Solid...” I mumble, my face clearly aglow.

Rarity pauses, mouthing silently in the air at me, before smiling shakily and saying, “B-but you can already stand. If you can manage the... eh... liquid way already, then what is the issue?”

“Well I just haven’t before,” I insist up to her, wincing at my choice of words. Of course I have before, just not on all fours, with my butt behind me, and not with the egress perched above... a something I don’t want to get dirty. “I mean, I don’t um, remember um,” I stutter, trying to find a diplomatic way to say this.

Rarity blinks slowly, then drops low on her hooves, right in my face, and shouts, “YOU DON’T REMEMBER POOPING?!” with these big shocked crystal blue eyes right at me.

I can’t help but notice how frazzled her hair is. Rarity’s really been letting it go, since she started... taking care of... me. I try to smile at her even as Rarity pulls back spluttering at her own words, and I say to her in as comforting a tone as I can,

“Yeah, um... it really shouldn’t be a problem it’s just really” weird, alien, disgusting, world ending, meme validating, borderline sacrilegious, “...embarassing.”

To her credit, Rarity doesn’t flinch at her burden of assisting me to the bathroom, for this abominable endeavor. She does trot awfully fast down the hall getting there, though. “I won’t do it,” I assure her, as much as I feel cramped from holding back, “I can make it it’s no problem,” but she doesn’t even answer, until we’re there in the toilet room across the hall.

“Just...” Rarity says standing there, still flustering about how to politely say “go poop you dumb horsebeast.” I take that as a hint to slide off her back, forgetting for the moment that Rarity hasn’t crouched down yet. When I slip off her side I inhale in surprise, hitting the ground with an oof.

“I’m okay!” I tell her, “No problem. Nothing came out! I’ll just...” Rolling to my belly, I contemplate jumping to my hooves. “You can go, it’s okay,” I say, as performing the act of standing makes my tail twitch unsettlingly. I have to hold it! I carefully straddle the toilet, finally steady on all four hooves, and smile at her comfortingly. Or awkwardly. Very, very awkwardly.

“Are you sure you can do it?” Rarity asks worriedly pausing at the threshold of the toilet room instead of ducking out.

I nod at her, “Y-yes I can already feel it pushing, so just” and that’s TMI for Rarity because she vanishes so fast, I wonder if she’s actually Twilight Sparkle in disguise. Leaving me alone, in the toilet room, straddling the toilet. And I am so full of shit.

“Okay, just relax,” I say to myself standing there, “Just let it go, and–” With a widening of eyes, I remember to heave my tail up out of the way. Probably too far out of the way, but I am not going to take chances. Okay, tail? Check. Toilet? ready. Alone? yup. Dignity? Error 404 dignity not found. “Okay, just relax and let it go,” I tell myself quietly, firming my lips and concentrating, trying to let the tension drain out of my lower body, which is my behind me body now. I wonder if the anus still EEeeewoah yes the anus still pushes outwards in ponies. I feel dirty for even thinking about Sweetie Belle having an anus. Much less a bonified ponut, however unobtrusive it may be.

With my position, and toying with the muscles in my sort of squeezy out hole, some unconscious signal causes my insides to surge, and I can feel a tremendous pressure down there. It’s nothing unfamiliar, but it’s nothing I want my happy little ponies to be feeling. Closing my eyes I brace myself, and just let it push, trying to encourage it as best I can, so it’ll be over with as soon as possible. My anus pushes out one more time and oh shit HERE IT COMES

plop... plop.

I open my eyes.

Okay wait, what. I try to twitch my rear, but just feel totally relaxed and ...empty there. Looking between my legs at the toilet water, its precious cargo doesn’t even reach the surface. Just a little pile of mush on the bottom, with bits of grass drifting in the cloudy water. That’s what came out of my butt. That. That was it?!

That’s when my bladder starts to empty, with a rush of relieving pressure. With my head already looking between my legs, I find myself torn between revulsion and fascination, and in either case utterly unable to look away. The urine emerging is a lot closer to a stream than I thought it would be, enough to make a sound when it strikes the water. Just a stream of yellow liquid emerging from behind my round, white, fuzzy and otherwise featureless belly, accompanied by the feel of relief and compression inside me. I can’t believe I’m actually watching piss blast out from Sweetie Belle’s crotch. Okay, maybe blast is a wee bit of an overstatement. Heh, wee.

I can’t believe that was it! Am I that much of a... lightweight? Is that normal? The pee gutters out, and it’s odd how my habitual attempts to get the last of it out make the belly I’m watching tense and twitch. My belly. I lift my head up to look forward, just in time for Rarity to poke her head in, scaring me half to death. Suddenly stiff legged, I relax enough to swallow my heart again, when I become aware that I am just standing there normally, like a good little filly, and Rarity didn’t just catch me staring at my own bowel movements.

“Sorry darling, it just occurred to me,” Rarity says hastily, with a pretty heavy blush on her own face. “If you have amnesia about... that, I want to make sure you remember to always wipe front to back.” Her muzzle scrunches right up then and she ducks away, clearly too embarassed to continue. And then her words hit me and I’m like... oh my god.

There was probably no danger. I’ve always wiped front to back regardless. It wouldn’t have been a problem, probably. But now I’ve got an adorable little pony vagina between my legs. If I ever wiped back to front... then some might... get in... ew ew ew ew ewewewewew.

Do girls really have to— about that–?!

One ew screen of death later, I grimace and reach for the roll of toilet paper. And... pulling off a piece is impossible, because I can only grab the whole roll at a time. It only takes me a second to figure out the solution though, I carefully remove my hoof push thingy out of the roll, and just slap it with an inert hoof, spinning it until a good amount rolls off, dangling in the air. That, I can grab in my hoof with no problem. It’s a little tricky to tear it off, but I’m counting my blessings at this point. I apparantly poop like a little girl, go figure. Pee doesn’t just spray out of there like I thought, if I’m straddled that is. And as I carefully wipe myself front to back, I may have to use about three times too much toilet paper, but after the second try, it comes up clean.

I guess the special fur oils that repel dirt so well are good for repelling other things too.

And then I pull the release lever, the large handle of which my hoof easily hooks into, and all my disgusting transgressions go swirling right down the drain. When I release the handle and put my hoof down I realize it’s shaking. I can’t believe I just pooped as Sweetie Belle. I can’t believe it was so easy. I can’t believe there was so little of it. I can’t believe that there was so little of it, if I ever get back to 4chan I’m going to have to go on an angry rant about why Sweetie Belle producing so much fecal material isn’t physically feasible. Whether I have to type with hooves, or not.

To summarize my life so far, pooping scared the shit out of me, and now that it’s over I feel a lot less scared of it. What was I even worried about, anyway? “Okay, Rarity!” I call out toward the door. “I’m all done!” Rarity’s relieved sigh makes me wonder what she was even worried about too.

Rarity draws a steaming hot bath for... us. She has me sit in the tub and soap myself up first. I’m able to do so all by myself now, without needing any help to get my... special place. Not that I haven’t already found much more direct ways to manipulate that place. The suds feel peculiar, making me feel all more... slippery down there. But also making my legs slip together and other parts of me slippery parts which are quite mentionable. Just more nerves in my vulva, I guess, to make it more noticeable.

The sponge doesn’t feel particularly...good against it, so of course I’m not scrubbing myself there. Not hard at least. I don’t have to be nearly as careful as I used to though. I don’t have to wiggle carefully around the scrotum. The vulva kind of feel a little... analagous to that, but without any hard painfully sensitive testicles in them. Also there’s no thin, soft, um... whatever you call the skin that would have been covering my penis is quite protected now. If I remember right, the tissue analog is the clitoral hood, and that certainly isn’t coming out over a little sponging.

My asshole feels completely normal. Nothing strange about it at all. Absolutely unremarkable. Moving on then. (Why is there white pigment there?)

Rarity doesn’t remark on any sort of special attention I may take to my um, unexplored places. I make a show of rubbing my legs and belly off carefully too, after being sure that a certain out hole—that absolutely has to be clean before getting in a bath with some pony—is clean. She scrubs my back with the sponge in her magic, since that is one place I certainly can’t reach. Magic sponge, that’s so cool. That, and the satisfying feel of it scrubbing into my shoulder blades (I have shoulder blades?) makes me giggle.

Rarity surprises me again, by stepping into the tub with me, this time before any water is drawn. It’s not exactly a reverse Venus when you’re not descending into water, but instead your hooves clatter upon the empty tub, finding purchase on the intuitively designed gripping surface on the its bottom. Nevertheless, her purpose is clear when she begins soaping herself up in front of me. I kind of sit there still all sudsy, watching the unicorn in fascination, not just watching her magic but also the way the sponge contours to her body. Rarity has such a beautifully filled out shape and—I shouldn’t say it but—an ass that won’t quit. Diamonds are her best friend, if you know what I mean. It’s all full, and wide, and pretty not like mine.

Rarity must have done her own soaping by herself yesterday, before our first bath, but this time she does it right in front of me. And, obviously misinterpreting my interest and fascination, she swings her rear around, tail swiping on the bottom of the tub to face away from me sitting down, and asks, “Would you be a dear and get the hard to reach places?”

It takes my brain some seconds to reboot, after having a system crash at the thought of my hooves getting anywhere near Rarity’s “hard to reach places.” Thus, she once again misinterprets my stupefication as amnesiac uncertainty, saying politely,

“That means my back, Sweetie.”